LITMIR.BIZ

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you? What will happen if you need a clean blouse in the middle of the week?”

      She grinned and tossed her head. Dressed in cutoff shorts and a Mickey Mouse tee shirt, her long blond hair pulled back in a simple ponytail, she looked more like a high-school student than a teacher heading back for a new school year. “I’ll buy a new one and wait until you come home to do the laundry.”

      He laughed and spun her around, giving her a soft pat on the derriere when he put her down. “No shopping.” He marched her toward the car, leaning down to open her door. “We’re saving money here, remember? We want to buy a house we can live in together.”

      “Okay, okay.” She stood on tiptoe and planted a long kiss on his mouth.

      He held her close. The last two months had been a whirlwind of furnishing his small studio apartment and training at the new office. He liked the people and they had responded well to him. The local manager, the oldest son of the company’s owner, had invited them over for dinner. Caroline had discovered a mutual interest in authors with Mrs. Abbott. Their youngest child, an almost kindergartner, had crawled into Caroline’s lap and stayed there until sent to the family room to play with her older siblings.

      Caroline had spent her days while he was at the office putting together school materials. Their nights had involved making memories that would last them through the days ahead. In a new place, a new town, she had lost any inhibitions and he sometimes wondered what his neighbors on either side of the apartment thought of the new tenant.

      “I feel like your lover and not your wife,” she had whispered to him last night, arms and legs wrapped around each other in the dark, tiny space he would call home for the next ten months. “Grabbing every minute together, until we can sneak away again.”

      He had held her close, savoring her scent, her soft skin, committing them to memory for the lonely nights ahead.

      Now he tucked her into the car and reached across to fasten her seat belt. “Call me as soon as you get home.”

      “I will.”

      He shut the door and she rolled down the window. “I love you, Mr. Eddington.”

      “Ditto, Mrs. Eddington.”

      He watched the car head down the street, waiting until she disappeared from view before going back to his apartment. The place was functional, one large room with a kitchenette built into the wall under the window. They had pushed the double bed into the opposite corner and hidden it behind a wooden screen Caroline had found at a garage sale. She had positioned the flowered couch at an angle from the front door. An easy chair, coffee table and simple entertainment center with a TV and his stereo created the illusion of a living room separate from the other areas.

      The apartment felt empty without Caroline. He wandered around, touching the leaves of the potted plant she had placed on the table, straightening a picture she had hung from their honeymoon in Colorado. He had snapped the shot from their cabin porch, the sun casting shadows on the canyon walls across the river. She had surprised him and had it enlarged and framed for their last anniversary.

      “So you don’t forget me,” she had said, sitting cross-legged on the bed. They had been eating pizza, the only food available in the town by the time they finished celebrating between the sheets.

      “I won’t have time to forget you.” He fed her the last bite of pepperoni. “I’m going to be so busy at work, I won’t have time to think of anything else. Once I’m home, I’ll drop off to sleep.”

      He sank onto the sofa, his feet stretched in front of him. He wished he was tired enough to fall asleep right now. The long nights of boisterous lovemaking should have worn him out. Instead, all he could think about was his lonely bed and the long drive ahead for Caroline.

      He changed into running shoes and shorts and jogged through the neighborhood, under the shade of the thick oak trees that lined the yards. The apartment building was nestled at the edge of a residential area, the five units catering to those few people in town who didn’t have a house of their own.

      A dog barked at him from the back fence of a two-story frame house and he gave a jaunty wave. He hadn’t had time to meet any of his neighbors yet, too eager to savor the time he had with Caroline. He would spend the next few days getting to know them, to become part of this town.

      His shower over, he turned on the evening news and slumped on the couch. When the phone rang, he dashed across the room and grabbed the receiver from the wall. “Hello?”

      “Hi. I’m home.”

      He glanced at the cheery kitchen clock she had placed over the refrigerator. Everywhere he looked, touches of her. He didn’t know if they would provide him with solace or make him regret their decision. “Didn’t take you long,” he said.

      “I didn’t stop. And I didn’t speed, thank you very much.”

      He grinned and sank to the floor, his back against the wall, the cord of the phone wrapped around his wrist. “Did I say you did?”

      “No. But you can’t let it go that I was stopped on our honeymoon. The only time I’ve ever been pulled over, I might add. And I didn’t even get a ticket!”

      “The officer gave you a warning ticket.” The yellow slip was packed away with their wedding pictures and license, a reminder of that first trip to Colorado. She had been nervous when the Kansas highway patrolman had come to the window, stating that she had just been married and the name on her driver’s license hadn’t been changed yet. The young officer had given her a warning and said they would be watching her.

      Her sniff of indignation sounded over the line. He could imagine her sitting with her legs crossed, her back against the headboard of the bed. “What time do you have to be at school tomorrow?” he asked.

      “We’re working in our classrooms. We can go whenever we want. I’ll go in when I wake up.”

      “The afternoon, then?”

      Another sniff. “I’m not sleeping in that late.”

      “Maybe I should call you and wake you up before I go to work.”

      “Don’t you dare!”

      The bantering went on for several more minutes. He was prone on the floor, the phone pressed against his ear as he said outrageous things to make her laugh. “I should hang up now,” she finally said.

      “Yeah.” They were talking late on Sunday night, but the bill would still add up.

      “Love you.”

      “Ditto.”

      “Nick! At least say it over the phone.”

      “I did.”

      A long sigh. “Sleep tight,” she said. “And have a good day tomorrow.”

      He crawled into bed and lay on his back, watching the shadows from the streetlight flicker over the ceiling. Her scent lingered on the pillow next to him and he tugged it into his arms, feeling foolish but comforted at the same time. He was a grown man. He could survive a few days without his wife next to him in bed.

      The days at work passed quickly. The owner of the heating and air-conditioning company had opened this second branch three years ago, putting the main responsibilities in the hands of his oldest son. Nick had been chosen to head the marketing department and improve their sales in the region. He pored over reports, looking for ways to help grow the company, papers covering the dinette table he and Caroline had found at a secondhand shop.

      He talked to Caroline each evening, after he ran down the streets of his new neighborhood. His running had been relegated to the bottom of his priorities over the last few years. Work and marriage had taken up his time. Now he found the exercise necessary, the sweat and heat he generated helping him forget the empty apartment and the emptier bed.

      After covering several miles, he would shower, dial the number of their town house and crawl under the covers. He had replaced

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